1. Field of the Invention
The present invention was made with the support of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Republic of Korea, under Project No. 10037336. This project was conducted in the project titled “Development on diabetic retinopathy treatment” in the project named “Knowledge economy innovation projects Source industrial technology development” by Eyegene, Inc., under management of the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology, during the period of 2010.06.01-2015.03.31.
This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2012-0024903, filed Mar. 12, 2012, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein.
The present invention relates to pharmaceutical compositions for preventing or treating arteriosclerosis.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the recent westernization of lifestyle, the incidences of arteriosclerosis diseases such as angina, intermittent claudication, myocardial infarction, and cerebral infarction, are gradually increasing, along with cancers. Once having occurred, these diseases are seriously difficult to treat and remarkably lower the quality of life. Therefore, the countermeasure to control prevention or medical conditions of the diseases is very important from the social view.
Arteriosclerosis is the accumulating of fat on the wall of the blood vessel and thickening of the wall of the blood vessel for a long period of time. Hyperlipidemia, particularly hypercholesteremia, is mainly an important risk factor, and hypertension and diabetes are also known to be risk factors. With the recent westernized diet and aging population, the occurrence of arteriosclerosis and related brain cardiovascular disease are largely increasing. In the progress of atherosclerosis, vascular endothelial cells constituting the inner blood vessel are first damaged due to oxidized lipid, high blood pressure, fast blood flow rate, and the like, and the fat is generally accumulated on the blood vessel, resulting in infiltration of macrophages and T cells and an inflammation response, and thus vascular smooth muscle cells proliferate to thicken the blood vessel. As a result, the blood vessel is narrowed and thus the blood cannot flow smoothly. In the case where the coronary artery of the heart is narrowed, angina pains resulting from an insufficient supply of the blood to the heart caused by immoderate exercise and the like are shown. Meanwhile, in the case where protease generated by macrophages inside the thickened blood vessel (arteriosclerosis plaque) is very active, a part of the tissue which covers the plaque bursts. Here, fat, surrounding protein, and the like contained in the plaque comes out in the blood vessel to form blood clots, which block the coronary artery of the heart, the blood vessel in the brain, and the like, causing myocardial infarction or stroke.
Throughout this application, various patents and publications are referenced and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosure of these patents and publications in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to more fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.